On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 5:55 PM Jordi Vilar via Std-Proposals <std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I would like to propose a very simple addition to the standard library in order to simplify variadic parameter pack expansion, and before writing a formal proposal I just wanted to share it in order to get feedback.
>
> Typically, expanding indices sequences require writing a dedicated helper wrapper. This is tedious and offers no value at all.

True, but C++2a's "lambdas with template parameters" does provide one (arcane) way around that issue. I'll show it below.

> The proposal is then:
>
> namespace std {
>   template<typename F, typename T, T... indices>
>   constexpr decltype(auto) apply(F&& function, [[maybe_unused]] std::integer_sequence<T, indices...> sequence)
>   {
>     return function(std::integral_constant<T, indices>{}...);
>   }
> }

I think Garrett May is correct that if you wanted to get this end result, you'd do better to ask for `index_sequence` to be tuple-like.
Alisdair Meredith's P1789 covers that feature request already. (However, P1789's motivation is based on "expansion statements," and my impression is that "expansion statements" are no longer likely to make C++2a. So P1789 is probably unlikely to make C++2a either. As of right now, P1789 is "P2 Unscheduled" before LEWG at Cologne this week.)

> This simple helper function could allow us to write, for instance:
>
> /// performs the addition of two arrays of arithmetic types
> template<typename T, std::size_t N>
> auto operator +(const std::array<T, N>& lhs, const std::array<T, N>& rhs)
>   -> std::enable_if_t<std::is_arithmetic_v<T>, std::array<T, N>>
> {
>   return std::apply([&](auto... indices) { return std::array<T, N>{ (std::get<indices>(lhs) + std::get<indices>(rhs))... }; }, std::make_index_sequence<N>{});
> }
>
> int main(int argc, char** argv)
> {
>     auto result = std::array{1, 2, 3} + std::array{5, 4, 3};
>     apply([&](auto... indices) { (std::cout << ... << result[indices]); }, std::make_index_sequence<3>{});
> }

You need to bring much better motivating examples. These two can already be written as

template<class T, std::size_t N> requires std::is_arithmetic_v<T>
std::array<T, N> operator+(const std::array<T, N>& lhs, const std::array<T, N>& rhs)
{    std::array<T, N> result = lhs;
    for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
        result[i] = rhs[i];
    return result;
}

int main()
{
    auto result = std::array{1, 2, 3} + std::array{5, 4, 3};
    for (int elt : result) {
        std::cout << elt;
    }
}

Consider using `MyTuple<Ts...>` instead of `std::array<T, N>`. In that case, what you'd end up with in C++2a would use the workaround of lambdas-with-template-parameters and would look like this:

template<Arithmetic... Ts>
MyTuple<Ts...> operator+(const MyTuple<Ts...>& lhs, const MyTuple<Ts...>& rhs)
{
    return [&]<size_t... Is>(std::index_sequence<Is...>) {
        return makeMyTuple(std::get<Is>(lhs) + std::get<Is>(rhs) ...);
    }(std::make_index_sequence<sizeof...(Ts)>());
}

int main()
{
    auto result = makeMyTuple(1, 2, 3) + makeMyTuple(5, 4, 3);
    [&]<size_t... Is>(std::index_sequence<Is...>) {
        (std::cout << ... << std::get<Is>(result));
    }(std::make_index_sequence<3>());
}

HTH,
Arthur